Capcom DLC: Shoryukens of the Wallet

Now, normally I'm not one to complain about DLC. When the 360 first launched, I found myself buying gobs of the stuff. But back then, most of the items on offer were significant additions to the games - extra quests, characters, levels, and the like. But then something started to happen. First with EA and some other American publishers eager to bilk consumers out of a couple extra bucks on top of a $60 game...this later spread to the Japanese publishers, on some of their more significant titles. It began with Horse Armor, and is now encompassing maps, modes of gameplay, and more. This is all well and good, except for one thing. Most of this content is ALREADY ON THE DISC YOU PURCHASE.

Fortunately for Capcom, in SFIV's case, the promised GAMEPLAY-related DLC will be free to the masses (the recently announced Championship mode, which adds much needed multiplayer enhancements). That said, it doesn't excuse them from this grotesque practice. They stuffed the SFIV release disc full of extra costumes and are releasing the unlock keys to XBL and PSN on a weekly basis. To get the extra costumes for all the characters, you'll need to shell out $15 when all is said and done. W...T...F?! These are the same costumes, I might add, that were unlocked via time release in the original arcade version of SFIV, and they aren't available in the console version without shelling out a grand total of 1/4 the MSRP of the game.

This brings up a very interesting debate. If we buy a game disc, do we have access to all its content? Many consumers would argue "yes", the companies would definitely argue "no". Companies in the digital distribution era are VERY set on the idea of selling you a "license" as opposed to "software". Doing so allows for two major benefits: first, they can cut their production costs by shipping a disc containing more content than the user paid for in its purchase price and allow the user to unlock it later by paying the fee, and second, it also allows for a deterrant to resale (by limiting access to extra content to those who purchase the game new, and denying access to those who bought secondhand versions). Many businesses, including Microsoft and IBM, will ship discs containing multiple versions of a product and will only allow the user to install what they paid for. So in some ways, this could be argued as the same practice at work here. That said, something still stinks when you pay $60 for a "complete game" and then find out features shipped in the final product were deliberately made inaccessible so they can be bought later. The most brazen examples of this practice actually come from "Scam"co Bandai, who locked Yoda and Vader to their non-native consoles as well as quite a few of the custom armor pieces in Soulcalibur IV...entire levels in Beautiful Katamari...and level-ups in Tales of Vesperia.


User complaints would certainly become less common if companies stopped releasing unlock keys (rather than content itself) to the digital marketplaces. Developers: if you want to charge extra for stuff you already developed, fine... put the content itself up for release, not an unlock key. Leave it out of the final game build. At the very least, you'd receive less complaints from users, they'd be none the wiser that it was developed in advance of the game's release. They're having issues with this very problem right now. Capcom is defending its addition of RE5's versus mode as premium DLC - stating that although it uses resources from the original game, it required additional time and effort to develop these extra modes. Great. That's fine. But when the mode finally is released in a couple of weeks, everyone will know immediately whether they're downloading an extra mode or a 128kb unlock key for content that players should already be able to access. If they're smart, they'll keep it out of the game's final build to avoid the tidal wave of negative publicity that would surely result from those who bought the "add-on". "LOLZ. It was already there!!! GOT UR MONEYZ ANYWAYZZ!!!"


If I were more brazen, I'd be looking for another way to deal with this problem - a technological solution, in fact. There has to be a way to obtain these unlock keys by looking through the source code of the disc and then downloading them explicitly into your console - bypassing the marketplaces altogether. I'm not sure what kind of security measures they have in place for DLC, but I do know it is very possible to burn certain files (demos mostly) to DVD and have them play on a 360. With the right third-party software, I see no reason outright why someone wouldn't be able to "game genie" or "gameshark" the "DLC" right out of each disc. Because this could technically be classified as "STEALING" by the software license model (but not by the disc ownership model), you can bet the company releasing such a product would be facing lawsuits from all directions, which is probably why cheat devices for the next gen consoles have yet to materialize. However, the entire gaming community would thank the company that developed such a solution for keeping publishers honest. It's really easy, guys...if you're thinking about releasing DLC for your games, follow these rules:

1.) Avoid putting the content on the disc, no matter how trivial it is. If you MUST charge for DLC that's developed before the game is released, release the content to the marketplaces - don't release unlock codes. It just makes people feel ripped off.

2.) If you MUST release unlock codes, disclose it to consumers so they don't feel ripped off. It's a lot easier to feel ripped off if a consumer isn't told up front that they aren't receiving "ALL" the features of the game included in the price tag. I think most companies feel they get away with this with the "XBL Compatible" or "PSN Compatible" logos, but that's absolute shenanigans at their finest. MMO companies are forced to disclose monthly fees, so publishers should be forced to declare "premium content" that's inaccessible without paying more money to download the unlock keys.

Publishers, I'm not asking you to stop, I'm simply asking for full disclosure.

And I practice what I preach. Being a day 1 purchaser of the CE of SFIV for the PS3, I have yet to download the Brawler costume pack that came for free with my CE...because I don't want to encourage the practice. Screw it. I don't need alternate costumes for SOME of the characters - it's either all or none. I choose none.